The Weekly PokerNews Strategy Quiz: Poker Math? Count On It

05-28-2016 68678 responses Top results

Poker is a game that starts out simple enough, but gets more complicated the longer it goes. A hand of hold’em, for example, is often not that complex before the flop, but can become increasingly so by the river. Same for tournaments, where things often aren’t so tricky early on, but the tests become more difficult the deeper into the tournament you go.

This week’s installment of The Weekly PokerNews Strategy Quiz imitates that trajectory, starting out with relatively easy questions and getting a little more challenging as it goes. The focus this week concerns “poker math” or those at-the-table calculations you sometimes have to make concerning blinds, antes, bet sizes, and how much is in the middle.

The questions are inspired by some of this week’s strategy articles on PokerNews, particularly those having to do with tournament-related math.

For example, early in the week we shared a warning about new, rapid structures for low buy-in events at this summer’s World Series of Poker: “Playing the Colossus? Structure Changes to Early Levels Make Fast Start Crucial.” Then came a discussion of “Building Big Pots with Big Hands: Stack-to-Pot Ratio,” and another explaining how “Crucial Mistakes Open-Raisers Make That Ruin Their Tournament Lives.”

If you happen to miss any questions, you’ll get an explanation of the correct response. When you’re done you’ll also see a pop-up showing you how you did compared to others, and if you’re logged into your PokerNews account your username will appear amid the standings. If you don’t have a PokerNews account already, click here to create one.

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Start Quiz

Question 1

It’s Level 1 of a tournament, and the blinds are 25/50. What would be a minimium opening raise?

Question 2

The blinds are 100/200 (no ante). It folds around and you open-raise to 450 from the button, the small blind folds, and the big blind calls. What is the size of the pot?

Question 3

The blinds are still 100/200 (no ante). This time an opponent open-raises to 450 from the button and only you call from the big blind. On the flop, you decide to lead by betting half the pot, which would be...

Question 4

You raise from the button and someone calls from the big blind, making the pot 750. You have 22,500 behind while your opponent has a little more. The stack-to-pot ratio going to the flop is...

Question 5

Again, the blinds are 100/200 (no ante), and now you’re in the big blind. You watch a player open-raise to 450 from the button, then the small blind folds. What are your immediate pot odds to call?

Question 6

In this year’s “Colossus,” Level 2 features blinds of 50/100 and no ante, then Level 3 has blinds of 75/150 with a 25 ante. That means when they go to Level 3, the cost per orbit (at a nine-handed table)...

Question 7

You raise, an opponent calls, and there’s 1,000 in the pot. As you go to the flop, the effective stack sizes are 13,000. If you want to lead each postflop street with a pot-sized bet (that gets called), how many pot-sized bets can you make?

Question 8

The blinds are 100/200 (no ante). It folds to you on the button and with a trash hand you decide to raise to try to steal the blinds. If you raise to 450, how often must both blinds fold in order for this to be a profitable strategy?